"FEMA Not on Alert"

Paul Taylor has written a sad story on the failure to get a public alert system in place before Hurricane's Katrina and Rita changed the political landscape. Some key quotes:

"The Department is in contempt of Congress," claims Peter Ward, a
veteran of a decades-long effort to improve public alerting and now an
independent consultant to NASCIO on the all-hazard alert pilot, "If I
were called by Congress to testify on why public warnings did not go
forward, it would only take one word -- FEMA."

The renewed Congressional interest in warning systems could cut both
ways for the state-based approach to a national alerting program. It
could shake loose the long-awaited funds to meet the original mandate
and provide addition funds for the national build out of this and other
allied alerting initiatives. It could also have the unintended
consequence of swamping the NASCIO-sponsored state solution with a
centrally-controlled federal system that could do for alerting what the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security did for FEMA.